The war, which has been raging on for five years since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, has seen the country's defence costs soar, reaching 15.5 trillion roubles (£144bn) in 2025.
By most accounts he spends most of his days living in a reinforced bunker surrounded by a very close group of trusted security. He is deeply paranoid after a lifetime of KGB work. He knows exactly how to get to someone like him, and he appears exceedingly good at anticipating potential attacks. His brutality and cunning appear to have worked so far. This is why you see people occasionally being murdered in very public fashion. It doesn’t matter if they actually crossed him. Suspicion is sufficient. He keeps everyone in a constant state of fear that every conversation they have is being recorded, because it is.
The only way things might get bette in Russia is when he dies, but the truth is, the Russian people accept this kind of authoritarianism. Russia has always had monarchs and dictators, and the Russian people practise an infamous brand of stoicism and nationalism. It’s very likely that they simply accept a new dictator after Putin. Russians are not revolutionaries at heart. They won’t fight civil wars to overthrow dictators. They don’t value freedom like we do.
This is a very western view, where the rich are very powerful.
In Russia, it doesn’t work like that, because it is not a state of law. If you refuse the dictator, he will order your murder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspicious_Russia-related_deaths_since_2022
On the flip side, Putin is not immune to polonium tea either.
By most accounts he spends most of his days living in a reinforced bunker surrounded by a very close group of trusted security. He is deeply paranoid after a lifetime of KGB work. He knows exactly how to get to someone like him, and he appears exceedingly good at anticipating potential attacks. His brutality and cunning appear to have worked so far. This is why you see people occasionally being murdered in very public fashion. It doesn’t matter if they actually crossed him. Suspicion is sufficient. He keeps everyone in a constant state of fear that every conversation they have is being recorded, because it is.
The only way things might get bette in Russia is when he dies, but the truth is, the Russian people accept this kind of authoritarianism. Russia has always had monarchs and dictators, and the Russian people practise an infamous brand of stoicism and nationalism. It’s very likely that they simply accept a new dictator after Putin. Russians are not revolutionaries at heart. They won’t fight civil wars to overthrow dictators. They don’t value freedom like we do.